1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a method for detecting mines, and in particular to a method of improving a sensor's probability of detection performance and the sensor's probability of false alarm performance.
2. Prior Art
Parametric methods index (or label) individual distributions within a particular family. For example, there are an infinite number of normal distributions, where each normal distribution is uniquely determined by its mean and standard deviation. If one specifies all of the parameters (here, mean and standard deviation), then a unique normal distribution is specified. Statistical techniques are properly called parametric where they involve estimating or testing the value(s) of parameter(s)—usually, population means or proportions. In contrast nonparametric methods are procedures that work without reference to specific parameters.
Nonparametric procedures can be based on ranked data. Data are ranked by ordering them from lowest to highest and assigning them, in order, the integer values from 1 to the sample size.
For large samples, nonparametric techniques can be viewed as the usual normal-theory-based procedures applied to ranks. For smaller sample sizes, the same statistic (or one mathematically equivalent to it) is used, but decisions regarding its significance are made by comparing the observed value to special tables of critical values.
Mine field sensor systems utilize a plurality of sensors to search, classify and map (SCM) contacts in mine fields. The contacts can be mines or false alarms. A method that improves the analysis of a minefield as to the determination of contacts as to whether the detected contacts are mines or false alarms is needed. Furthermore, improved spatial descriptions of the mine lines are needed, where it is particularly advantageous if the analysis can be applied across the board to sensor systems having differing levels of performance, and the improvement requires no knowledge of either the sensor probability of detection (Pd) or probability of false alarm (Pfa).